Bad Reviews

I recently came across a couple of negative reviews of my shop on a vegan website. That's a wierd feeling, like overhearing someone saying they don't like you.

The funny thing is that I agree with some of the points they made, but I'm not about to put much energy into changing things.

I opened my shop nearly 4 years ago, hoping to get some steady walk-in traffic while also having a space to do prep for my farmers' market concession. For the first two years I was there nearly every day, giving it everything I had, but the traffic just didn't materialize. It's kind of a wierd location, close to a main artery but hard to see and a little out of the way. It's also such a small space that it's nearly impossible to provide a "dining experience," and that's what most people expect when they go out to eat.

Fortunately, my farmers' market business started to take off right around the time that my enthusiasm for the storefront began to decline. The store has become mainly a place to prep for the markets. It's a sweet deal for me: there's enough business to pay the rent, and it's convenient to have someone there making tamales and chopping vegetables during store hours.

I have one employee who doesn't clean the shop as well as he should and often forgets things. He also has an attitude about some of the vegan customers, and I'll admit that I don't entirely blame him: they tend to be high maintenance, and they sometimes have unreasonable expectations. But he can crank out more tamales than anyone I've ever employed, so he meets my needs. I know he alienates some customers, but I have more to gain from his tamale production than I lose from his rough edges, so I'm happy to keep him around. (The rest of us try to do some extra cleaning to compensate.)

There's a lot that goes into the decision to open a restaurant, and the choice of what to serve on the menu. There's a lot of doublespeak in the mainstream advertising industry about meeting the customers' needs, but a business also has no meet the needs of its proprietor, its employees, and its suppliers. I do regret that these people are walking away from my shop having had enough of a negative experience to go online and write a review, but if we can't meet their needs, they'll probably be happier eating somewhere else. In the meantime, we'll be taking care of our regulars, and preparing for our next busy farmers' market.